


Something That Happens

by GoldStarGrl



Category: Veep
Genre: Allusions to prostitution, Anal Sex, Angst, Cunnilingus, Drunk Sex, F/M, M/M, Pre-Series, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 17:12:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3858469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jesus, does he do that to you all the time?"</p><p>Someone always does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something That Happens

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a chat I had with RillRill about Pre-series Dan and Jonah.
> 
> This is kind of dark and I apologize to those who raised me as well as the Catholic Church.

  _Don't want to think about it_

_I'm fucking tired of getting sick about it_

_Now stand back up_

_And be a man about it._

_\- Marinas Trench, "Ever After"_

* * *

Sleeping your way to the top always seemed so glamorous in movies, in books, even when watching the news before school in the pale New Hampshire daybreak. 

“JJ, turn that off, it’s inappropriate!” His mother chided as he sat on the floor of the living room, watching a lawyer hold up Monica Lewinsky’s semen-smeared blue dress for all the world to see. He rolled his eyes and ignored her, leaning forward with his chin resting on the top of his backpack. He was in tenth grade, she couldn’t tell him what to do. 

“It’s history!”

“It’s a floozy.” She tsked, picking up his half-eaten plate of eggs and bringing it into their small kitchen. “She oughta be ashamed of herself, parading around like that, breaking up a marriage.”

But Jonah had already tuned her out, looking past the lawyer at Monica. She was a dark-haired woman, chewing her lip and permanently carrying the stunned expression of a person who's suddenly, unexpectedly found themselves famous.

Jonah felt a vague stab of jealousy watching her. She was just a nobody, doing tiny work at the bottom of the food chain. And now every person in America knew her name - she held the power to do or say anything, and have it influence millions. It had just taken a few blow jobs.

“Hey! Get moving, you’re gonna miss the bus!”

“God Mom, stop being such a blowhard.”

“Jonah!”

She clipped the side of his ear, but he didn’t turn the TV off.

* * *

The first time he tried it out for himself he was just six days out of college, trying to get an internship with the Department of Agriculture. There were three other candidates who had gone to better Ivies and wore more expensive suits, and his panic grew after each of them left the room, looking pleased with themselves. He let his fingers drum against the manilla folder that held his resumé.

“Jonah Ryan?”

The Ivies tittered and he shot them a death glare. Jesus, why was he _called_ that? Nothing made a person sound more like an inexperienced hick than an obscure biblical name. He walked into the room silently cursing his mother and considering if he should change it to Robert or Brent.

The woman who interviewed him was not much older than he, small, blonde and compact, named Sam or Kris or some other chopped up version of a woman’s name that was trying to hide it’s femininity. Nervous, his tongue felt heavy and slow, and she didn’t seem too impressed with the words it produced. He watched her fingers as she scratched out notes to his answers, all pale and bare. He thought wildly of how to make her like him. An insane burst of courage broke off from somewhere in his chest and floated up to his lips.

“D’you wanna get drinks tonight?”

It came out so fast for a second he wasn’t sure if he had just thought it. Sam/Kris put down her pencil, mildly stunned, sizing him up the same way he had done to her.

“…Yeah, okay.”

It was entirely unprofessional and idiotic. She was unprofessional but she had clear skin and a round ass and he was an idiot but he was also really freaking tall and had started wearing his retainer again so his bottom teeth almost stood straight in his mouth when he clumsily ate her out in a Georgetown bathroom.

He was over a full foot taller than she was and it showed as he had to hold her up against the wall to get a workable angle. She moaned and carded her fingers through his hair as he licked her, getting her hands sticky with his styling mousse.

He got offered his first DC job that night.

Kris/Sam hardly spoke to him after that. He didn't mind. He didn’t really want to think about their night together. It was just something that he did. He made it with a cute lady and got a job in reward, double whammy. This is what this town was all about.

* * *

It got easier.

Saying that made him feel like a Baton Rouge prostitute in one of his mom’s stupid vintage detective novels, but it was true. You could only roll around on historic carpet, could only be bent over a desk or quickly pulled into a supply closet so many times before it started to lose it’s impact.

He moved up through the house and the senate. Some of the people he slept with were cute and young, women like Sam/Kris, but a lot of them weren't. Some were older or men or both, but he didn't let that stop him. He just gave them what they wanted and kept smiling, even when he didn’t feel like it.

It was just paying his dues, after all. Everybody had to. He didn’t see anyone else getting stomaches or staring blankly at themselves in the mirror at night. Ballers like him didn’t let anything phase them. 

He starts packing Purell in his satchel, and finds himself absentmindedly washing his hands during meetings and while riding the bus between K Street and the Oval Office.

* * *

It’s at the inaugural ball, technically the third one POTUS and Selina are attending but the only one that’s being filmed, being broadcast to the rest of the country, when he meets Dan. 

He slides up neck to where Jonah is standing against the wall, reeking of expensive scotch. He's all dark, sharp features and an undone bowtie hanging off a suit that probably costs more than Jonah makes in a year. He’s a little jittery, a little on edge.

“Are you Secret Service?” He asks Jonah, slurred, and yes, he’s definitely drunk. Jonah briefly considers how bomb-ass that would be before shaking his head.

“No.”

“Oh. You’re really tall. You should be.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, drumming his fingers against his thighs within the fabric, as if that was going to hide his fidgeting. 

“I work in the West Wing.” Jonah offers, feeling the familiar swell of pride at the words - he’s earned it.  

“Wait, are you shitting me?” Suddenly saucer eyes are fixed on him. “How the hell do you swing that? You the only one who can change the light bulb in the War Room?”

Jonah rolls his eyes and glances down at the security badge clipped to the hip of his pretty suit - _Daniel K. Egan, Deputy Communications Director to Congresswoman Lyman_. He almost laughs.

“How about you run along, play with the other kiddies.” He tries to take a sip from his drink, all suave, but it goes down the wrong pipe and he starts hacking, drawing many annoyed and scandalized glances.

“I could play with you.” Dan whispers, which does not help the choking situation.

After almost two minutes of hacking and several soggy napkins, Jonah considers this beautiful drunk boy, realizing with a shock that he’s really on the top, if people are trying to do what he did to Kris/Sam and countless congresswoman and closeted senators and even a CIA operative. 

He finishes his drink in one, the liquid mercifully going down smoothly this time. 

“...Yeah, okay.”

He fucks Dan in a dark and empty office outside the ballroom, one of those bland guest numbers that seems built for this very purpose. It feels different this time. Not just the sex, which is great and strangely aerobic, but the power.

Power that's dirty and hot and Jonah feels the closest to love he can emotionally comprehend when he thinks about it. 

“So, will the White House be in touch?” Dan says as he pulls his pants back on. Jonah nods lazily and lies.

“I’m sure."

He starts walking truly, ridiculously tall.

* * *

But he was just a stopover, in the end.

Dan was better at the game than he was. He very quickly realized targeting Jonah was a drunken misfire and turned towards the fairer sex. He was photographed with some oil man’s daughter and got hired for a Senator’s race, and then picked up by Washington DC’s favorite fuck up, Selina Meyer. His first day in EEOB he looked through Jonah like he was part of the architecture.  

He tries to console himself with the fact that he's also a star on the rise, and pretty soon he'll be on top of Dan again - pun fucking intended - and use their messy little tryst as leverage to get what he wants. But it's not so easy. At work, he seems to have hit some sort of glass ceiling, like a woman or a minority, unable to climb any farther up the chain of command. 

Everyone else's stars seem to be moving faster than his, leaving him in the dirt and comet dust.

He starts curling his shoulders in, talking with his head facing down towards his scuffed up phone. It takes him several weeks to realize what he’s doing - trying to fold into himself, accomplish the laughable task of appearing smaller. 

Guys his size are no strangers to stooping. But it doesn’t seem to be enough to get through the door anymore.

* * *

“Jesus, does he do that to you all the time?” Dan jerks his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Teddy’s retreating back, and there’s something wrong with his face. His brows are arched and his eye open wide, like he’s actually concerned.

Jonah’s mouth falls open a little, distracting him from his previous goal of not turning red or holding his hands in front of his sore groin. He almost shouts. 

_How the fuck dare you judge me. People do this all the time. I did it to you, Dan, remember? You wouldn’t even be on Selina’s radar if you hadn’t gotten down on your hands and knees while I stuck my dick in you. Does Amy know the way your face scrunches up when someone pushes into you? The way you squirm like a fucking Atlantic Avenue hooker? What would people think of the great ladies man Dan Egan if they saw how you gasped and stammered a little when Jonah Ryan made you come?_

But even he doesn’t lose his head and completely forget some semblance of social grace. So he just brushes it off with some bullshit about high spirits. This is fine, it’s normal, it’s something that happens. 

And then his moronic assistant is there, lighting another fire for Dan to put out. He runs off with a slight glance back over his shoulder and for a moment Jonah really does convince himself that he’s fine with what’s happening.

Because it made Da- _people_ see him again.

Really see him, plain as a stain on a blue dress.


End file.
